


the sky looks the biggest when you're on the ground

by duets



Category: Batgirl (Comics), DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Character Study, F/F, F/M, Gen, POV Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-11-26
Updated: 2012-11-26
Packaged: 2017-11-19 14:01:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/574036
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/duets/pseuds/duets
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It’s not redemption she sees in Bruce’s eyes and it’s not thirst for vengeance he sees in hers.</p>
            </blockquote>





	the sky looks the biggest when you're on the ground

**Author's Note:**

> a sliiiiiightly different take on some major events in canon. very much steph-centric.

It starts with Bruce and it doesn’t, and she does not think the others’ stories are much different from her own. It starts with Bruce and blood stuck to her fingernails that she has to bite to the quick to clean, dark gloves that go up to her elbows so she won’t see her hands.

It starts with Bruce but it doesn’t.

It starts with Steph making a choice.  
  
  
  
  
  
  


She is two months into ten and those noises are not crackers, the screams too familiar to be ignored, to be something made by ghosts in the street.

 _It’s not like that,_ her dad says, his breath ragged, and Steph’s eyes are still glued on his hand, the smell of gunpowder still clear in her nose.

Steph has heard that from a lot of people before. Boys at school who pushed her to the ground and made her kneecaps bleed, yelling and cursing her like no ten-year-olds should know how, smiling with their teeth bared at her and later telling teachers who were too busy to be able to care that _it wasn’t like that, they were only playing around, that’s all._

Steph is a _kid_. She isn’t _stupid_ , even if she’d be the first one to admit that those things _do_ overlap sometimes.

 _It’s not like that,_ he says, like it’s nothing, like he wasn’t running up their stairs just a second ago with a _gun._ Steph stares at his hands and he isn’t _dad_ anymore, not in the same way he was a minute ago.

 _Don’t tell mom,_ he says before storming out again and she does not even have the time to nod.

Her mom is doing night shift that day, arrives home with all her lipstick gone and her hair a sweaty mess, the navy blue scrubs smelling of old swimming pools when she strips out of them in the laundry room. Steph hands her out a cup of tea and sits beside her in the kitchen after she showers, both of them so silent that the Gotham noises manage to catch up to them, cars and people all mingling into one heavy screech.

The morning after, Steph wakes up to a note glued to her forehead that she somehow managed not to crush in her sleep. _REMEMBER TO DRINK YOUR OVOLTINE,_ in Mom’s ugly scrawl, and Steph laughs despite herself, smiles her way to the subway and, for just a moment, forgets.

It is only much later that it strikes her that Mom probably already knew by then. Steph never mentions it.

 

 

 

 

(She dreams of becoming a superhero, yeah, of _course_ she does. Who doesn’t at her age?)

 

 

 

 

Steph tells the teachers he’s out at work or sick or both if anyone ever happens to ask after her father. It’s a favour she pays him more than herself, and it’s filled with something much uglier than compassion, once she thinks about it.

After a while, the lies that curl out of her tongue stop tasting of anything other than protection and she half hates herself for it.  


She does not hate _him_ , even though she wishes she could, if not for his sake, or her mother’s or anyone else’s, then at least for her own. The picture of the future he reflects back at her is distorted with things she cannot see herself controlling, a punishment much harsher to her than any Gotham jail could ever be to all the things he has done.

She never tells anyone he is dead, never weaves a tale of sad funeral services for him, of her widow mother crying by his casket. He does not deserve the pity reserved for the deceased.

 _I am you_ , she wishes she could say, _and I am going to kill you myself._

(The name she chooses might be giving it all away a little too easily, but at least she isn’t the one robbing old 24/7s in hopes of being featured on the twelve o’clock news. She has her hands around his throat once, though, and that is enough.)

 

 

 

 

She kisses Robin because she _can_ , because his mouth looks good under the shadow of his mask, because his ass kinda looks good too. He says _I’m on patrol_ with the most outraged voice _ever,_ and Steph grabs him by his cape and wants to crack a joke at how flashy his uniform is, but his body feels good against hers and his tongue is kinda good too, so she lets it pass.

She does not separate the two of them once she finds out about Tim, isn’t sure if he can even find the line himself.

(She fucks Robin and she fucks Tim and is _pretty sure_ Nightwing hates her a little bit for both, but she smiles, keeps her chin raised and her hands clean, even when she wishes she wouldn’t. And, yes, Batman might just be the _worst_ in-law in history, but Steph could do worse. )

 

 

 

 

She flies with Batman and the night wind blows fire against her cheeks, makes it too hard a task to focus on anything other than the ground under her boots, the light in the buildings ahead. She flies with Batman with her chest heavy but her hair is a mile long, and it gets in her eyes and reminds her that this is _it._

(She cuts it shoulder-level before she starts college, not exactly needing the change but welcoming it anyways. She doesn’t need anything to remind her of who she is anymore.)

 

 

 

 _You are not the same as Jason_ , Tim tells her once, three days after she officially stole his place as Robin, half an hour since he’d told her that wasn’t what she had done.

There is something different about the way Tim breathes inside this house that is his and is not—like the lack of masks and missions and tactics is too much for him to bear.

 _How are you,_ Steph wants to ask, because she is still his friend and he will always be hers, even if she has long forgotten how his mouth tastes.

She puts her hand to his shoulder, the fabric of his t-shirt light and thin under her palm. Tim doesn’t flinch, and Steph isn’t sure if it’s because of her emotional predictability toward him or if it’s simply because he needs the contact. There is very little keeping them apart here, very little walls for Tim to hide behind. She can feel his scars when she steps closer to hug him, can feel the spiky way his collarbones make themselves noticed, like wings.

“You are not like Jason,” Tim repeats, his voice low, his chin to her shoulder, his hand coming up to touch her neck, smooth and sure and very much unlike himself, like he is mimicking something he saw buried in a file once, blurry images on late night Cave television. “I’ve watched _both_ of you,” he says, and she misses the beat to call him a creepy little stalker. “I know _you_. You move differently.”

( _You were kinda the Inception Robin,_ she tells him years later, when she has long lost count of how many times she has fought against and with and beside Red Robin or whatever it is that Tim calls the giant condom alias those days. _A mask within a mask, blink and you brrm._ Tim laughs despite himself, and Steph is still proud whenever that happens, moves closer to fit his arm against hers. _I know how you move too._ )

 

 

 

 

 _It’s a job and it’s not_ , Barbara says, a small smile playing on her lips. “Obviously, you don’t get paid,” she begins, and then her eyes widen, voice dropping an octave, “Well, only in _justice_.”

 _You had a brother,_ Steph says then, without thinking, and she isn’t _Tim,_ she isn’t allowed to say those things without permission, she isn’t expected to _know_ that much, is sure of that the same way she is sure that it isn’t only her imagination when she thinks Alfred says her name with a little less care than he does the others'.

“Yes,” Barbara answers, and her voice doesn’t sound like her own, featherlike and lost like something sad Steph had never seen before.

“What happened?” Steph whispers, even though it’s just the two of them outside the house, even though it’s summer and there’s sun on Barbara’s cheeks, accentuating her freckles like they’re a multitude of stars.

“I took a different _career_ from his,” Barbara says, her eyes tired, hands clutched together on her lap.

Steph thinks of her dad’s scared eyes looking down at her, the surprised look on his face when he finally _got_ it.  She thinks of her mom working the morning shift now and coming back home for lunch, and she _laughs,_ how could she not, and it’s out of the blue enough to startle Barbara out of her own thoughts.

She raises both her eyebrows in that way of hers that is becoming more familiar to Steph daily, and says, dry as ever, “So what happened to that purple monstrosity of yours, kid?”

“It was _eggplant_ , actually,” Steph replies with a shrug, and Barbara laughs, warm and loud, and something in Steph’s chest loosens a little.

(Barbara’s voice buzzing in her ear when she’s out on patrol for the first _official_ time is the thing that makes it all sink in, and it stays that way long after Steph has thrashed out all her uniforms, long after she stops wearing the comm.)

 

 

 

 

They take her away twenty-six hours after it’s done. Tim is somewhere hidden in the shadows of the hospital, likely clutching to a half-empty cup of dirty espresso, making sure the noises from everywhere else don’t get to her room, looking all around for all the available exits—but it all barely registers to Steph, it gets all filed in like details to a B class mission.

They take her away twenty-six hours after and Steph is left with nothing but scars she can’t put a moment to, her breasts heavy and the place between her ribs hurting. That she can deal with without thinking. _Those_ things she knows.

They take her away twenty-six hours after, and Steph makes sure no one knows where, makes sure it’s far enough that Gotham won’t be able to ever catch up with her.

They take her away and she’s nameless, perfect. Steph thinks of her many codenames then, of Barbara’s and Tim’s dad and, god, of _her_ dad, how they all hid between different aliases, hidden behind the hiding itself.

Steph thinks of Spoiler, of the first time she put on the cowl, eyes closed and barely breathing, and she wants to name her daughter. She wants to mark her permanently but leave no scar. _I named you_ , she wants to say, _so you wouldn’t need a mask_.

(They take her away twenty-six hours after. Steph leaves at the seventh.)

 

 

 

 

She remembers being five and staring up with wonder at her father’s bright suits, remembers getting sick when he left too long for work. She remembers discovering her father was just your regular human jackass, the way that revelation had marked her, how nothing felt like enough compared to the anger.

She can hardly tell when her mother was not a nurse, when she stopped waiting for Steph’s dad to come back home. Steph’s mother was always, never forgotten but never fully remembered either, and then she was _more._

Steph remembers her mother getting their locks changed, remembers finding her mother home when she ran away from the hospital, legs hurting and eyes stinging.

She remembers calling out and being answered.

( _Why are you even watching this again,_ her mother says, handing Steph a cup of something that surely _smells_ like coffee but certainly doesn’t have caffeine because _your cardiovascular system has enough adrenaline pumped into it as it is_ and _cholesterol_ and all sorts of other meaningless _nurse_ whatnots.  “It’s a cartoon, mom. I like cartoons.” Her mom snorts and then crosses the sofa to sit beside her, props Steph’s legs up in a way that makes it even more visible that those pants were outgrown _ages_ ago. “You have terrible taste for cartoons, though,” Steph is told, and she doesn’t even blink when the remote is taken away from her. She will have her revenge. Well, sometime after the commercials and a bowl of contraband Cap’n Crunch. It can wait.)

 

 

 

 

Cassandra is both the most terrifying and most fascinating person Steph has ever met, and that has very little to do with how skillful she is with white weaponry or how she manages to make Dick look less insane when both of them are in a room.

Steph isn’t kissed by Batgirl and she is not friends with Batgirl, although if asked, she’d probably tell you there was very little that kept the suit from becoming Cassandra and vice-versa.

“You would be better off calling the Ghostbusters… _Sir_ ,” Cass deadpans one day after Alfred threatens to call up Dick in the ‘Haven to take care of the goings-on his GPD contacts have been whispering about.

They end up both going out on Barbara’s orders, and the black of Cassandra’s uniform is comforting like no other thing, even if it melts with the darkness outside, even if looking too closely at it almost makes you believe you’ve gone blind.

In retrospect, Steph doesn’t as much fall for Cassandra as she is _allowed_ to.

( _I am your Robin,_ Steph says when Cassandra decides to leave. She was never trained to speak plain truth, and the words hurt her tongue when they slip out of her mouth by their own volition. “But I am not Batman,” Cass replies, very slowly, as if she’s talking to a confused child. _Does that even matter,_ Steph spits, but Cass never says anything back, does not even flinch, just steps closer and looks, looks.

She _does_ leave, of course. But that doesn’t matter either.)

 

 

 

 

“ _Todd_ was more of a Robin than you,” is what Damian tells her one night, when he’s made sure her hands are too busy stitching up his forearm to strike him up the head.

It’s sudden, like all things with Damian are, but Steph has been around long enough to kind of see it coming.

“And _you_ are only here because you are anything _but_ your father’s son.”

There is no bite in her words, not really, but she is still surprised when Damian laughs, low and weak, like he is not sure exactly what he’s doing.

“Touché. Well played, Brown.”

(It’s fitting in the cruelest, most ironic of ways that Damian ends up being _her_ Robin. They do not talk about it, of course. _Fuck your feelings, Wayne,_ Steph tells him once, when they’re both drunk and feeling useless after letting a suspect run away. They’re shoulder to shoulder at some nameless bar in South Gotham and while it is amusing that alcohol makes Damian somehow willing to discuss his human emotions, Steph is not here for this. _Well played as always, Brown,_ he replies, the syllables slurred in a way she remembers from when she was a dumb teenager herself. _I am heaven sent and heaven bound, Wayne. Don’t you dare forget._ He smiles and it doesn't look quite as strained as it did years ago, _Of course you are, sir_.)

 

 

 

 

It’s not redemption she sees in Bruce’s eyes, after. If she was being honest, _that_ is something she’ll probably never find in Gotham, not in a place where her own history is her greatest enemy.

It’s not redemption she sees in Bruce’s eyes and it’s not thirst for vengeance he sees in hers.

 “It’s something else,” she tells Barbara once, sleep deprived and tired and _hurt_ , her eyes so bloodshot she can’t even see past Barbara’s chair from where she is lying on the ground, the computer just a giant mass of light that makes her migraine even worse.

Barbara never asks _what_ it is, but Steph is half sure she understands, that _they_ all do, one way or another.

 

 

 

 

(She does not forgive him, doesn’t think that’s what he would want from her, anyway. He asks her once what is it that he is supposed to _do,_ and the question is so ridiculous Steph can’t even bring herself to laugh at it. _I still respect you, for whatever that’s worth,_ she says, and then leaves, not _it,_ not at all, but _him._ It was _their_ fight once, to find out what it is that Bruce is supposed to do and want and _be,_ but it isn’t anymore. Steph isn’t sure if he is strong enough to fight for himself, if he ever was at all, but it isn’t their— _her_ —job to stay behind and wonder anymore.)

It ends with Bruce but it doesn’t.

 

 

 

 


End file.
